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Vattenfall sacks head of defective nuclear plant

Vattenfall sacks head of defective nuclear plant

Deutsche Welle 08.07.2009

Four days after a technical failure shut down a nuclear power station in northern Germany, operator Vattenfall admitted to having made a mistake, while Social Democrats and Green are urging a boycott.

Vattenfall admitted that a mistake had been made at the Kruemmel nuclear power station and confirmed that it had fired the plant manager. The Swedish operators said the head of the reactor had broken an agreement with German authorities to install discharge detectors on a transformer.

It was a short-circuit on one of the transformers that caused the Kruemmel plant to shut down last weekend, thus restricting power supplies across much of the city of Hamburg.

Vattenfall has now said it will not repair the electrical transformers, responsible for the supply of power to on-site machinery, but will replace them entirely. As a result, the reactor will not resume operations for several months.

The latest incident at Kruemmel, just one of many problems that have dogged the plant over the past years, has sparked furious political debate over the security of nuclear fuel technology.

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,4464985,00.html

July 9, 2009 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Germany, safety | antinuclear, nuclear, radiation, radioactive